The New In-house Guru? A Lead Quality Officer
Today, at almost every organization large and small who spends money online, you will find if not an entire team dedicated to search, then certainly at least one in-house expert focusing on it. For those working in the online space, that wasn’t necessarily the case three years ago, and it certainly wasn’t common five or more years ago. That such a role has developed and become both commonplace and essential is one of the many neat developments that have transpired as the internet has evolved. The same holds true for social media experts. More and more companies need them, but there isn’t a
In online lead generation space, a new such role is starting to exist – that of a lead quality expert. We haven’t quite hit the point yet where companies will think of having a Chief Lead Office, but it wouldn’t come as a surprise if one came to exist in the near future, especially at companies whose main source of revenue comes from either the generation or purchase of leads. Until then, we are starting to see the seeds of its predecessor, a role that for lack of a better title could go by Lead Quality Expert, Lead Quality Guru, or what I suspect will take shape, Lead Quality Manager.
David Rodnitzky wrote about the need for a Lead Revenue Officer in his Quick Hits piece on LeadsCon, saying, “‘Lead quality’ is just a metaphor for ‘revenue from leads.’” I think David’s correct, but perhaps his view is a little too advanced. The majority of people understand the need for quality, but they cannot separate out in practical sense the notion of quantity from revenue. When you talk about making more money, the knee-jerk reaction is still to look at that from a volume perspective. If viewed more holistically, though, making more money off leads would span not just quantity metrics but quality as well.
A talk of quality is nothing new, but that doesn’t mean organizations have truly aligned themselves towards acting on it. Actions of quality mean having treated lead quality just like any important function in the business with a combination of technology, expertise, and process implementation. That can’t happen until someone at the company lives and bread lead quality. To date, it is generally someone who takes on lead quality as an ancillary function to their current job, or a developer handed Targus Info or eBureau technical documentation and expected to make it happen. You wouldn’t find that at a company who spends meaningfully (to them) on search has their search spend handled by someone whose job function encompasses more than search. And, so it should become the same with online lead generation.
There is too much money to be made, and there is already too much money being spent, for companies who aren’t currently aligned to maximize lead quality and thus revenue not to. In slightly easier to read English, if a company spends more than a full-time person’s salary buying or selling leads, it such consider having a full-time resource dedicated to maximizing quality. This is especially true for companies who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars per year in online lead generation.
For those with an analytical mind and a technical enough bent, this is a great chance to craft a role that doesn’t have any prerequisites. You get to be a pioneer and becoming an expert in this will pave the way for countless opportunities that we can’t imagine today. Not to mention, you”ll help make the industry that much better.
